Deliberation
by surrexi
Summary: Vaughn searches for the answers down the barrel of a gun.


Title: Deliberation   
Author: Liz )   
Distribution: My site, Allies, Cover Me. All others see profile.   
Rating: PG   
Spoilers/Timeline: Episode Tag, 3.21 (Legacy)   
Ship: Syd/Vaughn   
Summary: Vaughn searches for the answers down the barrel of a gun.   
Disclaimer: Dude. If I owned this stuff, do you think season 3 would have happened the way it did? I don't _think_ so! 

I brought the rifle to my shoulder and peered through the sight, imagining her face in the crosshairs. My finger tightened convulsively on the trigger, and I lowered the weapon. Was this really the answer? 

Carefully, I set the rifle back on its rack. I ran my hand caressingly over the handguns mounted next to the rifles. I could hear Jack's voice in my head. 

_Your rage is seething under the surface._

"I am doing the best I can," I said out loud, as if the guns surrounding me had ears and cared about my problems. I pulled one of the handguns off the wall. It was a good strong one. No pissant guns for Jack Bristow. 

I held the gun out in front of me, aiming slightly downward. She was on her knees in front of me, begging for mercy, and I had the gun trained right between her lying eyes. 

_I suggest you focus your energy into achieving closure on this matter._

_No one wants Lauren in custody more than I do!_

_That's not the kind of closure I'm referring to._

Could it be that simple? Would killing Lauren Reed bring me the closure I was searching for? Before Jack stopped me in the hallway and handed me a key, all I was focused on was getting her into custody. I had been sure that it would bring me closure to hand her over to the authorities to be tried for treason and executed for it – because she would be, of that I was certain. 

But Sloane had been on death row, and he was still breathing. Sark and Irina had both been in custody at some point in time. 

I lowered the gun, pulled it close to my face to examine it carefully. So simple a matter, pulling a trigger, shooting a gun. I was a damn good marksman, especially after all the shooting I'd been doing since finding out the truth about my so-called _wife_. It would be so easy, technically speaking, to take aim and pull the trigger. And end her life. 

I could easily imagine myself enjoying some grim satisfaction in standing over the lifeless body of my betrayer. I could see the tight smile that would play over my face as I traced my finger down Jack's list of contacts looking for a good one to hire to dispose of her remains. And then I heard my own voice in my head. 

_That may be your way of dealing with things. It's not mine._

Shaken slightly, I returned the handgun to its wall mounting. I turned to lean on the table Jack and I had once used as both planning and operating table, all in the pursuit of one woman. 

_I do not want you endangering her._

_You left me behind! Nadia saved my life!_

_I would never put your life in jeopardy._

My fingers tightened on the edge of the table. I told her I would never put her life in jeopardy. But I had. The hell of it was, I damn well knew it, and so did she. 

I began to pace agitatedly back and forth. Ten feet forward. About face. Ten feet forward. About face. What was I doing? What was I becoming? Who was I? I stopped dead and stared at the wall of guns. I imagined it was a little like a recovering alcoholic suddenly plopped down in the back room of a liquor store, or an ex-gambling addict faced with a sea of slot machines and blackjack tables. My gaze fixed on a shining revolver. Talk about Russian roulette. 

_She betrayed me, she betrayed all of us!_

And she deserved to pay for what she'd done. Maybe Jack was right. Maybe the only way I could be certain that justice would be served would be to serve it myself. After all, Jack had been unable to make certain that Irina had paid, and look at all the trouble _he_ was having. I certainly didn't want to end up as an emotionally distant and closed-off, bitter man. 

_That may be your way of dealing with things. It's not mine._

My words came back to haunt me again, filling me once again with doubt. Perhaps following Jack's advice to murder Lauren would only set me on the path to closed-off bitterness that much sooner. After all, it would indicate that I would be beginning to think like Jack, to act like Jack. 

I tried to remember who I was three years ago, after the fall of SD-6 and before Sydney died. That was the man that Sydney fell in love with, the man she still loved. I was terribly certain that I was no longer that man. 

_You have to listen to me, you have to believe me when I tell you that the person you are right now is not the person you want to be._

I dropped to my knees on the hard concrete floor, the jarring impact and the pain in my knees nothing compared to the pain that was gripping my heart. Since October 1st, 2001, my life had had one direction, one focus. Sydney Bristow. She kept me sane, somehow kept me believing in happily ever after, even after she was dead. Our happily ever after, I had decided, would come when we were reunited in Heaven. 

Even after Lauren had come into my life, I still made decisions with Sydney in mind. When I decided to teach, it wasn't just because the local community college advertised for a French teacher the day I finally decided to look at the want ads. Sydney, I had decided, would have approved. After all, teaching had been her When-This-Is-All-Over dream. I took it upon myself to carry the torch, so to speak. And everyone told me Sydney would have wanted me to move on. Finally I believed them and I had, more the fool am I. They were wrong anyway. 

_I would have waited. _

I was so in love with you, it nearly killed me. 

Vaughn…you saved me…now it is my turn to do that for you. 

I dropped my hands from my face and looked up at the wall of guns. Suddenly they weren't nearly as pretty, or nearly as seductive as they had been five minutes ago. To my chagrin, I realized that I was trembling with the effort to not make a mad grab for Jack's list of hired assassins and a trusty pistol. 

I was falling fast, and I needed a rope. I needed a light to pull me out of the darkness Lauren's betrayal had plunged me into. 

I did the only thing I could think of to do. 

I pulled out my cell phone. I scrolled through the entries in my phonebook until I came to the one labeled _Sydney Cell_. I took a deep breath and hit _Send_. 

"Hello?" 

One last breath, one last glance at that rifle and the handguns, and then…absolution. I chose justice over vengeance. I chose openness over bitterness. I chose myself over Jack Bristow. But most importantly – I chose Sydney. Just Sydney. 

"Joey's Pizza?" 

**The End**


End file.
